Stephen Kaufman, Esquire

Adjunct Professor of Law

Biography

Stephen R. Kaufman is the First Assistant U.S. Attorney of the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania. 

In his 25 years as a federal prosecutor, he has handled a wide variety of violent crime, narcotics, child exploitation and white collar cases.  Notable cases include the successful eight week trial of the Pittsburgh La Cosa Nostra organized crime family on RICO charges, the prosecution of the distributors of China White, a deadly synthetic form of heroin which caused the overdose deaths of 17 individuals in 1988, the prosecution of Michael Carlow, owner of Pittsburgh Brewing and Clark Candy, for perpetuating a $31 million dollar check kiting scheme against PNC Bank, and more recently obtaining the conviction of and an 11 year prison sentence for Dr. Oliver Herndon, a physician who was the most prolific illegal distributor of oxycodone in the Pittsburgh area prior to his arrest.  

After graduating summa cum laude from Allegheny College in 1981, Mr. Kaufman attended Harvard Law School, where he graduated cum laude in 1984.  He joined the United States Attorney's Office in 1988, after working as a law clerk for United States District Judge Donald E. Ziegler.  He has also engaged in the private practice of law with former United States Attorney Fred Thieman at the law firms of Titus & McConomy and Thieman & Kaufman.  Mr. Kaufman has been a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law since 1997, where he presently teaches White Collar Crime